TABERNACLE
143
TABERNACLE
,ijwith this, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches (as above seen) us to regard the outer part of the tabernacle as more strictly typical of the person of Jesus Christ, and the inner of heaven, into which he has now entered. Thus he speaks of him (viii, '2) as now, in the heavenly state, " a minister of the true [i. e. real, d\t]^ti'i), as distinguished from symbolical] taber- nacle which the Lord pitched, and not man," wliere the allusion seems to be partly to the fact that Christ is in heaven, and partly to the fact that he ministers tliere in human nature. Still more ex])licit is the language used in ix, 11, where the writer, after speaking of the sacerdotal services of the ancient economy as merely figurative and outward, adds, " But Christ having ap- peared as high-priest of the good things to come, by means of the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hantls (that is, not of tliis creation), nor by means of blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, entered once (for all) into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." In inter- preting this passage, we would follow those who take the whole as far as the words " his own blood" as the subject of the sentence, and consequently join the clauses depending from Cid with Trapayu'uf-iti'ot;, and not with ei'cri/X.Sei' ; for it seems to be more natural to suppose that the writer sliould say that it was b}' means of a more perfect tabernacle and a holier sacritice that Christ became the high-priest of spiritual blessings than that it was by these means that he entered into the htily place. The objection to this construction which dean Alford urges, that "in that case ovSs would be left with- out any preceding member of the negation to follow," is of no weight, for it burdens the construction he adopts as much as that he rejects, and is to be obviated in either case by resolving oliSi into /cat ov (see IMeyer's note on ver. 12). Assuming this to be the proper con- struction of the passage, it seems clearly to represent the human nature of our Lord — that in which he made his soul an offering for sin — as the antitype of the an- cient tabernacle in which the liigh-priest offered sacri- fice, while the heavenly world into which he had enter- ed as a high-priest was typified by the holj- place into which the Jewish high-priest entered to appear in the symbolical presence of .Jehovah. For further confirma- tion of this may be adduced Heb. x, 20, where the writ- er, speaking of the privilege enjoyed by believers under the new dispensation of approaching God through Christ, says we can do it " by a new and living way which he hath inaugurated (tvsKaivKTEi') for us through the vail (that is, his own flesh)." The allusion here is undoubt- edly to the ancient tabernacle service, and the truth set forth is that as the high-priest of old went with sacrifi- cial blood through the vail into the holy of holies, so we, as made priests unto God by Jesus Christ, may ap- proach the immediate presence of .Jehovah through that path which the Saviour has inaugurated for us b_v his death in human nature — that path by which he himself has preceded us as our great intercessor, and which is ever fresh and living for us. There may be some rhe- torical confusion in this passage, but the general idea seems plainly this, that the body of Christ, slain for us, affords us a passage, by means of sacrifice, into the pres- ence of God, just as the first tabernacle with its services afforded an entrance to the high-priest of old into the holy of holies (see Hofmann, Schriflhnceis, II, i, 405 sq. ; \Veiss(t(j. II. Erfdllumj, ii, 189 sq.).
For the symbolism, in a New-Test, sense, of the va- rious parts and uses of the tabernacle, such as the altar (^iKTiarrri'ipiov, Heb. xiii, 10), the vail (jcaTcnr'trdcr^ia, X, 20), the mercy-seat (iXaari'iptov, Rom. iii, 25), etc., see each word in its place.
6. It is proper in this connection to refer to a specu- lative hypothesis which, though in itself unsubstantial enough, has been revived under circumstances that have given it prominence. It has been maintained by Von Bohlen and Vatke (Biihr, i, 117, 273) that the commands and the descriptions relating to the tabernacle in the
books of Closes are altogether unhistorical, the result of the effort of some late compiler to ennoble the cradle of his people's history by transferring to a remote antiquity what he found actually existing in the Temple, modi- fied only so far as was necessary to fit it into the the- ory of a migration and a wandering. The structure did not belong to the time of the Exodus, if indeed there ever was an Exodus. The tabernacle thus becomes the mythical aftergrowth of the Temple, not the Temple the historical sequel to the tabernacle. It has lately been urged as tending to the same conclusion that the circumstances connected with the tabernacle in the Pentateuch are manifestly unhistorical. The whole congregation of Israel are said to meet in a court which could not have contained more than a few hundred men (Colenso, Pentdtmch and Book of Joshua, pt. i, ch. iv, v). The number of priests was utterly inadequate for the ser- vices of the tabernacle {ibid. ch. xx). The narrative of the head-money collection, of the gifts of the people, is full of anachronisms (ibid. ch. xiv).